Air duct cleaning customers get hosed

SPRINGFIELD, MO — Several local residents have complained of high-pressure sales and scare tactics and inadequate results from duct cleaning company Indoor Air Solutions Inc., according to KYTV-TV.

One example involves Bob Holloway who wanted to help his daughter get the ducts cleaned in her new home and contacted Indoor Air Solutions after seeing an advertisement in the newspaper, the story stated.

Holloway said: "My granddaughter has asthma so we gotta have it cleaned. By the time [the contractor] was finished, it was $1,427.85 for something I was expecting to pay $100 for. For two weeks, I had trouble going to sleep, thinking I had gotten taken."

According to the story, Indoor Air Solutions allegedly told Holloway the high cost was to get rid of significant mold growth throughout the duct system, something the company supposedly told several other unsuspecting patrons.

Out of curiosity, Holloway called two other local duct cleaning companies, EnviroAir and LCS Kleen-Aire Inc., and asked how much they would charge to do the same work; their estimates were both about half of what Indoor Air Solutions charged, the story noted.

Acting on instinct, Holloway had another company, EnviroAir, come out to inspect the work and found that Air Solutions left behind significant amounts of debris and provided him with a report saying the ducts weren''t properly cleaned, the story added.

Steve Childers, an inspector with LCS Kleen-Aire, said: "All appearances are that it has not been cleaned in the life of the home; many years worth of accumulation. I would hope that it''s not been cleaned at this point."

According to the story, Holloway was given a full refund for the inadequate work performed and learned a valuable lesson: Research the companies you plan on hiring.

According to Gil Valazquez, operations manager of Indoor Air Solutions, he is going to do everything in his power to ensure these things don''t happen again and that they have fail-safe measures to protect customers so they don''t get a sub-par job.